Made (1972 film)

Made
Directed by	John Mackenzie
Written by	Howard Barker
Based on	No One Was Saved by Howard Barker
Produced by	Joseph Janni Edward Joseph
Starring	Carol White Roy Harper
Cinematography	Ernest Day
Edited by	David Campling
Music by	John Cameron
Production companies	International C-Productions & Vic Films
Distributed by	Anglo-EMI Film Distributors
Release date	28 August 1972 (1972-08-28) (Venice)
Running time	101 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

Made is a 1972 British drama film directed by John Mackenzie and starring Carol White and Roy Harper. A young single mother has a relationship with an insecure rock star. It was written by Howard Barker based on his 1970 play No One Was Saved.

Mackenzie later called it "a mess".

Plot

Valerie is a single mother working as a switchboard operator in Brighton while caring for her infant son as well as her mother, who is suffering from multiple sclerosis. She draws the interest of Mahdav, who is forcefully aggressive, as well as Father Dyson, who is controlling, but she has little time for either of them. She becomes infatuated with the touring musician Mike when she hears him speak about the unnecessary guilt placed on the innocent by religion. The two make love before he leaves to continue touring, making Father Tyson jealous. Valerie's mother, now in a hospital, complains about her condition in order to gain more attention from Valerie. Valerie leaves her child with June as she visits her mother, only to find that she was exaggerating her complaints. While Valerie is visiting her mother, June gets caught in a conflict between football hooligans and the pram is knocked down some steps, killing Valerie's child. Valerie finds little solace in those around her until Mike returns, bringing a little of joy. Valerie receives a note that her mother's condition has worsened but she spends the night with Mike instead of going to visit her. Father Tyson arrives and tells her that her mother has died and gets into an argument with Mike. Valerie takes Mike's words to heart and seeks to love who she can when she can instead of requiring anything permanent. She visits Mahdav and allows him to have sex with her but afterwards he becomes possessive, insisting that he is in love and that she is his wife. A constable separates them and drives her home. Mike, now in Los Angeles, releases a song titled "The Social Casualty" containing lyrics about Valerie's tragedies. Valerie hears the song on the radio and begins to cry.

Cast

• Carol White as Valerie Marshall
• Roy Harper as Mike Preston
• John Castle as Father Dyson
• Margery Mason as Mrs. Marshall
• Doremy Vernon as June
• Sam Dastor as Mahdav
• Richard Vanstone as Ray
• Michael Cashman as Joe
• Brian Croucher as Arthur
• Ray Smith as first Policeman
• Carl Rigg as second Policeman
• Bob Harris as interviewer
• Sean Hewitt as Andy
• Peter Jenner as Mike's M.D.
• Len Jones as Barry
• Ivor Butler as Dave
• Ian Ramsey as Kevin
• Colin Pilditch as Jacko
• Colin Daniels as Peter
• Michael Tarn as Charlie
• Jenny Donnison as Janice
• Yvonne McKain as Yvonne
• Sara Clee as Ann
• Babs Jessup as Babs
• Peter Miles as doctor
• Mairhi Russell as night nurse
• Phyllis MacMahon as Irish nurse
• May Warden as patient in hospital
• Ellis Dale as passenger on train
• Michael Standing as young man on train
• Nell Curran as young lady on train
• Paddy Joyce as engineer
• Christopher Taynton as engineer
• Giovanna Renai as waitress

Production

"The story is set in London but its happening throughout the world," said producer Joseph Janni. "Young people, searching for values, something to believe in. Some look in nearly empty churches, others in the pop world or among Jesus freaks. But who really has the answers?"

Soundtrack

The film featured excerpts from Harper's songs "The Lord's Prayer", a live excerpt from "Highway Blues", a live session of "Little Lady" and "Bank of the Dead" (a.k.a. "The Social Casualty" and "Valerie's Song") sung with alternative lyrics.

Some of the dialogue from a scene in the film is featured as a sample in the beginning of Saint Etienne's 1993 song Hobart Paving.

Reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Attempting to invest social problems with personal immediacy, Made unfortunately short-circuits any possible sympathy by the jejune air of its drama. Its people never seem too far removed from statistics, or at least the conventional assumptions that can be drawn from statistics, while their dramatic environment seems to have been put together from the worst clichés of the old Free Cinema movement. The strains of the hymn "Jerusalem", and the switches in mood from brief moments of circumscribed happiness to the abrupt retribution of crushing guilts, sum up the atmosphere of the film with almost nostalgic banality, leaving the characters hopelessly stranded between outworn conventions and the static distortions of thumbnail sketches from a social worker's casebook."

Variety wrote: "Virtually downbeat all the way, with few if any smiles granted a hangdog Miss White, pic is burdened by unhappy dialogue, a cluttered script into which too many thematics are superficially cramped, and a disjointed construction which jumps around from one predictable development to another."

External links

• Made at IMDb